I, too, join in the sympathies expressed to former Councillor Jim Finucane. I also welcome the guests of Senator Cosgrove. Some have been in the Seanad so many times over the past couple of weeks, I am worried they are eyeing up some of our seats. They are all very welcome here today. The Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland recently published a report showing the average cost of rebuilding a home rose by 7% nationally over the past year, following an increase of 6% last year. Thankfully, it is below the 12% incr…

Put him on a stamp.

I echo the sentiments of the previous speakers and thank the Minister and Minister of State for listening to the numerous contributions in this House earlier this year calling for additional support for the post office network. I thank the Minister of State for taking that on board because, as previous speakers have mentioned, we are not just talking about a service. We are talking about an institution in rural Ireland. We are talking about the cornerstone and flagstone of rural communities. It is great to hear tha…

I also welcome the visitors from Clann na nGael GAA in south Roscommon. This tour was organised in conjunction with former Deputy Denis Naughten. It was great to be able to facilitate it and that of the next group that is going to be in here. While I am talking about welcoming visitors from the west of Ireland, I take the opportunity to raise the issue of the increase in toll charges that is going to be implemented from 1 January 2026. At time when the cost of the living is increasing, it is a bit much to look to i…

The Minister is welcome. I welcome the opportunity to speak on the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030. I want to use this time to highlight feedback I have got from a lot of people and others I have engaged with on the ground, so that when we look back after the term of this strategy, we will have hopefully addressed some of these and things will have moved on. At its core, the strategy is about fairness and making sure everyone, no matter their ability, has the same chance to live, work a…

A few weeks ago, I called for additional support in the telephone allowance for older people. I called for it to cover broadband and to potentially become a communications allowance. Following recent storms, a number of households all over the country have been without electricity or water. At the same time, our providers are still applying standing charges to these people's bills. I do not know any other sector in which you still have to pay for a service that is not provided. I am particularly defending and stand…

The Minister is welcome. I thank him for the opportunity to speak on the Domestic Violence (Free Travel Scheme) Bill 2025. I commend the Senators on bringing this Bill before us. It is a very simple, practical idea that could make a big difference in people's lives, especially to women and children trying to escape violence at home. I come from County Roscommon, one of the nine counties the Senator referred to that currently do not have a domestic violence refuge. However, work has started on that, and a multiagenc…

In a totally unrelated way, I too want to raise the work of Croí here today. I was not at the information session Senator Rabbitte attended last week, but on Friday last I was involved in the first Croí 5 km run-walk held outside Galway as a fundraiser. The organisation's major fundraiser, which supported all the amazing work Senator Rabbitte spoke about, took place last Friday night in Salthill. We ran the first one to be held outside of Galway in County Roscommon and it was the first such event to be held there. …

I welcome the Minister once again to the Chamber. Like the previous speaker, I will not spend my time clapping him on the back but nor will I kick him. If he is a success in his Ministry, we will all benefit. That is how we must look at it. Budget 2026 shows that he listened to what people were saying and he delivered where he could deliver. As Senator Dee Ryan said, he put a mechanism in place in respect of student fees that will enable sustainable delivery. I hope he will answer what other speakers asked about gi…

I, too, echo colleague's sentiments and unwavering support for the Tánaiste, Deputy Simon Harris. I also echo my colleagues who have called this out for what it is and pointed out the Tánaiste is upstanding and hard-working, and has delivered in every role he has ever taken on. Today is SUDEP Action Day - sudden unexpected deaths in epilepsy day. SUDEP is one of the most devastating aspects of epilepsy. Thanks to research supported by Epilepsy Ireland, we know 33 people die of this in Ireland each year. When other …

I mention a particular issue, namely, a report that was published earlier today which ranks Roscommon as the highest tallied scorer, making it statistically the safest place in Ireland to raise a family in 2025. Leitrim, Mayo, Sligo, Donegal, Monaghan, Clare, Kilkenny, Longford and Galway all follow in the top ten. This is something that I have personally known about for years and something I have promoted for years, which is all the positive things we have in Roscommon. On the other side, however, when it comes to…

I propose to share time with Senator Noel O’Donovan.

The Minister stated, "Budget 2026 is a pro-enterprise budget that recognises the critical link between industrial development, infrastructure investment and job creation." In this volatile time, the focus was on protecting the 2.81 million jobs in our economy that we cannot take for granted. First and foremost, the reduction of the VAT rate from 13.5% to 9% has straight away saved and protected 191,000 jobs that would probably be the most susceptible in a volatile economy. The Minister must be credited for that. I …

Like my colleague before me, I welcome Senator Andrews back. I cannot wait to hear the stories about his ordeal. It is good to see him return safely. Following on from the budget, I want to acknowledge the €130 million in grants for older people for housing adaptations; the €140 million for the retrofitting of social homes; the €558 million in funding for residential and community energy schemes from the SEAI, including the warmer homes scheme; the better energy home scheme; the national home energy upgrade and ret…

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the Chamber this morning. This is my fifth Commencement matter for the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and he has not entered the Chamber at all yet. I just want to put that on the record. We have just had Storm Amy and a lot of my constituents in Roscommon once again spent the weekend without power. That follows on from Storm Éowyn back in February when 768,000 customers across the country were without electricity supply because of that storm. On the August bank holiday weeken…

I thank the Minister of State very much for the response. A total of 768,000 customers were without electricity in February. We face another winter with the same uncertainty. Probably the only certainty is the chance that we will have power outages. I could bring anybody in the Chamber to forestry in west Roscommon right now and show them which trees are going to come down and take out which power lines and knock out which group of people in the coming weeks. My constituents and the people of the west deserve to ge…

I had a Commencement matter this morning on Storm Amy. I failed to acknowledge and recognise the staff of the local authority who worked all weekend across Roscommon and the west cleaning up the mess, along with the staff from the ESB and the forestry management services. I want to congratulate them now and thank them for doing this work in difficult times. I also want to congratulate the 72,833 people who are receiving their junior certificate results this morning. They will be visiting school to get their results…

I wish to raise an issue following Storm Amy last Friday. We were protected up here in Leinster but in other parts of Ireland there were widespread power outages and issues with Irish Water and the water supply. I was dealing with this all across the weekend because hundreds of people and households were affected by power outages. I made phone calls to PowerCheck and the ESB yesterday with regard to reporting issues with power outages and the notifications that people get. For those who are not familiar, a person n…

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House to give us the opportunity to make statements on the budget. I compliment him and his Cabinet colleagues on the delivery of the budget. To remind people, budget 2026 is worth €9.4 billion, €8.1 billion of which is spending and €1.3 billion is tax. It represents increased spending of 7%. Through budget 2026 we will provide as much certainty as possible in a turbulent world. This is a Government that has based itself on fiscal responsibility. We have steered the e…

I raise the issue of the impending storms that are about to hit the west at the weekend. The review into the co-ordinated response into Storm Éowyn needs to be published and made available to us before the forthcoming storm season kicks in. Not enough has been done to ready the western part of the country for the next season of storms. We still have many broadband lines that are down and leaning against hedges. Electrical wires have been repaired but a permanent solution has not been put in place for them. I do not…